Reports Link BetConstruct Owner Vigen Badalyan to Illegal Betting Empire in Turkiye
By Altan / 30/04/25
The OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) team of journalists has uncovered details about the multi-million-dollar betting business of Turkish businessman Halil Falyalı. Falyalı’s former CFO Cemil Önal told reporters that his partner from Armenia was Vigen Badalyan, who is one of the shareholders of the online gaming and betting giant Soft Construct.
iGamingTR Additional info: Vigen Badalyan is the owner and CEO of BetConstruct as well.
According to Önal, Badalyan’s company provided software for numerous betting sites in Turkey, and Falyalı was the sponsor and supporter of the Armenian businessman’s activities in Turkey.
Badalyan’s legal team has denied Önal’s allegations
Soft Construct LLC was established in 2014 and is 100% owned by Soft Construct Limited, a company registered in the Isle of Man, whose sole shareholder is Boston Nominees Limited, also registered in Man. In the latest annual report of Soft Construct Limited, one of the directors listed is Vigen Badalyan.
In 2020, brothers Vigen and Vahe Badalyan became shareholders in Soft Construct LLC with 50% shares each. In 2021, the company was reorganized into Soft Construct CJSC.
In addition to accepting bets, Soft Construct offers betting website and game creation services, innovative technological solutions to make the gaming industry easier to organize.
Almost everyone in Armenia knows the Vbet brand of Soft Construct. Vigen Badalyan presents the brands he created on his website. But this brand has long crossed the borders of Armenia. Vbet is represented all over the world, through offices opened in different countries. Vbet is advertised at European football matches, various concerts, and competitions.
The Vbet.com website conducts its activities through the company Radon B.V., registered in the Caribbean island state of Curacao and licensed for gambling from that country (Curacao, which is an offshore zone, is an autonomy within the Kingdom of the Netherlands), and the operator-organizer of vbet.am is the Armenian Soft Construct CJSC.
The Badalyans deny their connection with the Falyalıs
Halil Falyalı is a Turkish Cypriot businessman. On February 8, 2022, a group of armed men attacked his car. The driver, Murat Demirtaş, was killed in the car, and Falyalı, who suffered sixteen gunshot wounds, died in a Nicosia hospital.
Falyalı was a well-known figure with connections to Turkish and Turkish Cypriot officials, and thus he became the kingpin of gambling in Turkey.
The United States indicted Falyalı and his brother, Hüsnü Falyalı, on drug money laundering charges in 2015. But Falyalı has never been arrested and appears to have had no serious problems in Northern Cyprus (read OCCRP’s investigation to learn more).
OCCRP spoke with Cemil Önal, who was Falyalı’s chief financial officer from late 2013 until November 2021. He quit his job a few months before Falyalı’s murder. He is currently in a Dutch prison.
Önal recounted that Halil Falyalı and Vigen Badalyan met in 2016. According to him, Badalyan offered Falyalı thirty percent of his earnings in Turkey in exchange for not “harassing” his people. According to Önal, Badalyan’s BetConstruct, which creates and maintains betting and gambling websites in Turkey, received eighteen percent of the websites’ income every month, which was then divided 70-30 between Vigen and Halil.
According to Önal, the number of BetConstruct websites in Turkey is 150-200
“This Armenian guy sells infrastructure to the world. About 5000 sites get their infrastructure from them. From BetConstruct. Why from Armenia? The labour force in Armenia is very cheap. This man, this Vigen Badalyan is the godfather of the sector.”
Responding to OCCRP’s inquiry, Soft Construct’s legal team stated that neither Vigen Badalyan nor the company has any business relationship or financial dealings with Halil Falyalı, his family, or any of his associates. “The assertion that Falyalı provided “protection’ to BetConstruct’s clients and received preferential financial treatment is completely false and unsubstantiated.” Soft Construct said, adding, “We are unaware of any claims by Cemil Onal regarding financial arrangements, and we challenge the accuracy of these statements.”
Önal also said that Vigen Badalyan only interacted with Halil, his brother Husnu, and himself from within Falyalı’s circle by phone and Skype. He claimed that Badalyan and Husnu Falyalı were photographed together at a gaming industry exhibition in London in 2015.
In response, Soft Construct’s legal team told OCCRP that trade events are industry-specific public gatherings attended by multiple individuals: “The mere presence of an individual at an event does not imply a business relationship, and any such insinuation would be misleading and speculative. SoftConstruct has no business relationship with Husnü Falyalı. We are not aware of any direct or indirect professional dealings with him.”